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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 3984 ..

MS HORODNY (3.39): I would like to make a short statement on why I dissented from the key point in Mr Moore's statement, which was that the committee considered that there were not sufficient grounds to justify an ongoing interest by the committee. I was the one who first raised this issue with the committee. Residents adjacent to the church site in Chisholm approached me because they were upset at being told out of the blue by the Revival Centre that a church was going to be built on what is now parkland, which the residents had no reason to believe would be anything but parkland in the future. There had been no public notification of this development proposal and there were no appeal rights. The Revival Centre had approached only the residents immediately adjoining the site, as there was no obligation on it - that is, the Revival Centre - under the planning rules to consult any further.

The case highlighted a number of problems with the allocation of community facilities in the ACT and the consultation process for development applications under the Land Act and the Territory Plan. I thought it was a worthy case for further investigation by the committee. The committee in the past has investigated similar cases where residents' concerns have been raised about a particular development proposal. A recent example was the Nudurr Drive case in Palmerston. I was disappointed that the rest of the committee chose not to treat this case with the same seriousness as other matters that have come before it.

I am concerned that the committee's decision not to pursue this case was taken before the local residents had an adequate opportunity to present their views to the committee. There was one public hearing on this issue at which the planning officials and the pastor of the church presented their views. The committee was told prior to the hearing that the main spokesperson for the residents was not available on the day of the hearing but was willing to appear at a later date. Three of the local residents attended the public hearing but had not expected to speak to the committee as they were under the impression that the residents would be given a hearing the following week. The committee allowed the three residents to make impromptu comments on the other speakers' comments, but I do not regard this as being equivalent to the notice and time given to the other speakers to present their views. I think it would have been proper for the residents to have been allowed the time to organise amongst themselves how they wanted to present their case to the committee.

There are significant issues involved in this case regarding how the site came to be zoned for community facilities and whether this is the most appropriate use of the site; how the church was granted the lease of the site; and how the community should be consulted about these types of development applications. Up until 1990, this land was classified as undeveloped land but it was rezoned to community facilities once the adjacent alignment of the Monaro Highway was finalised. This zoning was confirmed in the Territory Plan released in 1992. The planners used these previous processes as justification for not needing any further consultation on the use of this land, but I do not believe that that is good enough. Hardly any of the residents in that area knew that this land could be built on. There are many people in this area, and across Canberra, for that matter, who do

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